A Preparatory Study of Nomenclature and Text Designation in the Dead Sea Scrolls

This article considers the history of nomenclature for the Dead Sea Scrolls, as reflected in the names given to manuscripts in the official editions in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series (some attention is given to the nomenclature in more recent editorial projects). Sometimes names were derived from the manuscripts themselves. Often, however, names (such as Apocryphon) reflect the supposition of a canonical divide. Or they assume a differentiation between sectarian and nonsectarian texts. Or scrolls are described in generic terms borrowed from the study of other corpora. While such names are evidence of the editors’ attempts to understand a new corpus and fragmentary manuscripts of many new works, they also govern the way we read the scrolls. The aim of this article is to review the former processes of naming scrolls, and to offer some preliminary directions for the renaming, reclassifying, and rethinking of the scrolls.
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